This week, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article titled "We Need Philosophy of Journalism" by critic-at-large Carlin Romano. He takes the innovative first steps toward forging a bond between two disputing disciplines: philosophy and journalism. Previously, philosophers considered journalistic work as, in Romano's words, "superficial intellectual goods" and believed journalists to be nothing more than "B or even C students," or "committed to simplistic narratives of the world shorn of nuance and qualification." Yes, this may be a result of journalists regarding philosophy professors as "mannered figures, badly informed and out of touch on matters outside their academic competence" as well as "insufficiently quick witted on their feet." However, the world of journalism has a lot to offer the world of philosophy and vice versa. In fact, I believe that no matter how hard journalism tries, the discipline will always be rooted in philosophy.

Journalism cannot escape the influence of philosophy. Every journalist writes his or her journalistic work with a perspective. Despite heavy editing, perspective cannot be eradicated. Even if all literal evidence of opinion is removed from an article, every event or issue reported by a news source is interpreted and analyzed in the mind of the journalist prior to writing. The method by which journalists interpret a story depends upon their previous experience and knowledge.

A complete philosophy involves a culmination of experiences. For this reason, journalists are wonderful philosophers. From week to week, journalists cover different topics, often spending a period of time in a specific region or covering a certain issue in its entirety before moving on to a new project. The result of all of these snapshots of information is a well thought-out opinion, social viewpoint and understanding of the situation. It is the journalist's job to look at a situation in a new and novel way and then to translate the findings into a rational piece or argument to allow readers to benefit from a thoroughly developed opinion. This is not only the job of the journalist but also the philosopher, who looks at modern social and ethical dilemmas in order to try to find new and innovative solutions or answers.

In his article, Romano suggests that philosophers fear that facts and figures will taint the purity and originality of their deep and personal epiphanies. However, Romano explains what sparked his interest in philosophy: "a fact-based approach to life that naturally steered me to philosophy. It was precisely all that raw journalistic information, often contradictory, that I thought stirred me to reason in a philosophical way, asking further questions, noting counterexamples, seeing the implications of the uncertainty of one concept for the uncertainty of others."

A philosophy that is meaningful as well as practical must embrace facts to function in a real-world situation. Just as an article composed without research serves no real purpose, a philosophy without a base in a modern reality will prove useless for the public. It would benefit both fields to embrace its enemy's strength as their own. Innovative journalism and thoughtful philosophy create a more analytical intellectual landscape. In the same way that philosophers should be trained to keep away from purely esoteric philosophies by accepting reality, journalists should be taught to develop their biases rather than attempting to remove it entirely.

Within Brandeis' journalism minor, not only is there no requirement to take a course about the philosophy of journalism, but short of a course on the ethics of journalism, a class concerning the philosophy of journalism is not even offered at Brandeis. A class that instructs students how to develop their inevitable biases, and discusses the position of the fine line between truth, fact and opinion or how theories such as utilitarianism fit into journalism would interest both journalism students and philosophy students. It could even build the relationship and dialogue that would bring an end to the long-winded battle between the two groups.